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I've been doing a particularly poor job of posting to this blog since I arrived in New Jersey, and tomorrow Kyle and I are flying out to Myrtle Beach so the situation is unlikely to improve over the next week.In my defence, it's been a busy couple of weeks. In fact, just like the very real hurricanes swirling out in the Atlantic this time of year, it feels like we've been caught in our own metaphorical New Jersey hurricane - in between visiting our lawyer, buying our rings and attending the very rocking bowling alley wedding of our friends Chris and Christine, we've also been designing our wedding stationary, and checking out possible venues. Kyle has been doing a great job keeping up with this whirlwind in her blog (start with her "Wedding logo draft posting" and work your way forward, if you want more details or check out our great designs!).
In the odd minutes left over from all that, I've been enjoying being back in New Jersey now that it's summer - it's warm enough to go out without a coat, and the air is filled with the loud high-frequency clicking sound of the cicadas. It's pretty neat. Meanwhile there's also a few changes on the Princeton campus, which seems to be undergoing maintenance before the fall semester: the "marching figures" have disappeared from the front of the Art Museum, Upstart 2 has lost its black paint job (now more in keeping with the artist's intentions), and until earlier this week my favourite fake Picasso sculpture had also been under wraps.
Also, random people seem to be more talkative now. They're often interested in where I'm from, and how the weather differs between the US and the UK (my take: generally the climate in NJ is quite similar to back home, although a bit more consistent than back home, and with greater extremes - the summer being much hotter, and the winter is much colder). They're also interested in knowing if I follow soccer, and seem disappointed when I say I don't (I might start trying to bluff my way through it in future).
Anyway, fun as it is all is, after running around for the last few of weeks it'll be fun to finally get away to South Carolina for a bit: sun, sea and sand, miniature golf and great food at the K&W. I'm sure Kyle will be blogging in real time while we're there, otherwise - see you when we get back. Aloha!
It seemed like quite an inauspicious day, overcast and with intermittent rain both on the train journey to Lancaster and on the number 80 bus to Ingleton itself, and the start of the waterfall trail was pretty dark and muddy beneath the overhanging trees. The first part of the trail follows the River Twiss and the second section returns along the River Doe, so the sound of the rushing water is almost constant, with even the largest waterfalls seemingly hidden from view until you get close up.
Probably the most spectacular of many spectacular waterfalls - presumably well-fed from the recent rains - was Thornton Force (incidentally my choice of pseudonymn when I start writing thrillers: "Another novel from the pen of Thornton Force"). Getting between the two rivers involved a walk across farmland which thankfully also featured an ice cream van.
After walking for 3 1/2 hours, I was feeling like a swim. The Ingleton pool was last on my small list of pools that I'd planned to visit over the summer, and while it's not so large, the place is big on character, with the nicest voluntary staff ever - when I arrived it was full of kids fooling around but the woman running the cafe very kindly let wait until the break at 4pm then I could have a little swim on my own before they came back at 4:30 (so as long as I promised "not to drown"). The sun came out and for twenty minutes I had the pool to myself - blue skies above, blue water below, nothing else like it. Bliss!
At 4:30 the pool filled up again with the kids and also people who like me had finished the Waterfalls Trail. It was a lot of fun and a complete constrast to the tranquility I'd been enjoying a few minutes earlier. A hot cup of tea from the cafe was the perfect way to relax afterwards, although I was denied fish and chips from the Inglenook cafe as it's closed all day Tuesday. I ended the day waiting at the bus stop (where a crowd of Hasidic Jews were also waiting for their own coach).
(My pictures of the waterfalls and other things around Ingleton can be found on Flickr.)
The rest of the week was spent preparing for my trip back to the US, which is where I am now. It's great to be back with Kyle again! And the weather in New Jersey is definitely much warmer compared with when I was last here in January. We have plenty to do over the next few weeks, including some wedding planning (see Kyle's recent blog postings for some of what we're up to), but I know it's going to be fun. Stay posted!
